Northern Pulp concedes emissions on rise

Northern Pulp at Abercrombie Point, Pictou County, admits that emissions from the mill have increased over recent months (AARON BESWICK / Truro Bureau)

Northern Pulp admits that emissions from the Pictou County mill have increased over recent months — an issue that’s got locals fuming.

“Until recently the precipitator met all regulatory limits but its efficiency has deteriorated more rapidly than initially expected,” David MacKenzie, a spokesman for the mill, said Wednesday.

The kraft pulp mill is installing a new precipitator to remove the solid particles from the emissions coming out of its smokestacks, but the new machinery’s not scheduled to come online until May.

And that’s not good enough for a growing chorus of Pictou County residents and business owners.

“We’re mystified that an operation the size of Northern Pulp could operate and not have the expertise to find out what problem is,” Anne Emmett said.

“If you can’t figure out what is wrong then close it down, find out what’s wrong, fix it and then reopen.”

Emmett and 25 other members of the Clean Pictou Air Group of Businesses met with MacKenzie and the mill’s vice president of operations, David Kerr, on Tuesday.

Then former Empire Corp. president Paul Sobey went public after the meeting, telling CBC News that the emissions from the pulp mill are “criminal.”

On Wednesday MacKenzie declined to respond to Sobey’s comments, but said that if the mill shut down it would not be able to reopen.

In Nova Scotia, the forestry industry is highly interconnected. The lower-quality softwoods that end up being chipped for Northern Pulp’s Abercrombie Point plant grow in among the higher-value trees that are sawed into lumber at mills like that in Scotsburn, Pictou County.

In a tightly-margined industry, harvesters can’t afford to cut for saw mills without having a buyer for the pulpwood.

The Pictou County mill directly employs about 230 people, with hundreds more working in the woods.

“We understand the frustration of the community,” MacKenzie said. “Everyone here is working hard to speed along the new precipitator.”

But Emmett isn’t satisfied.

“Residents and businesses alike cannot continue to live in this environment,” she said.

Emmett has run the Braeside Inn for 23 years with her husband and said that, in recent months, the smog is the worst she’s ever seen it.

Visitors to her Pictou business end up cancelling their reservations once they smell the smog and then post on social media warning other tourists not to visit the town, she said.